Aeon Flux (2005) – Review

Aeon Flux is one of the most absurd movies to come down the pike in a long time. This beautifully designed sci-fi thriller, is a head-scratching adaptation of the nearly incomprehensible animated shorts that ran on MTV. Ranking with Battlefield Earth and Doom as contenders for worst science fiction movie of the aughts, Aeon Flux strips lead actress Charlize Theron of charisma and saddles her with awkward dialogue.
Many centuries from now, the Earth’s population has fallen to less than 1% after a lethal virus almost wiped out the human race. All life is confined to one mega city-state, run by an anonymous government official. A pocket of resistance fighters, led by Handler (Frances McDormand), seeks to disrupt the status quo and overtake the oppressive government forces. She assigns Aeon Flux (Charlie Theron) the mission of assassinating a high-ranking chairman (Marton Csokas). This forces Aeon to become part of the system that she is rebelling against. Quickly, she realizes that both sides are dealing in deceit and corruption.

You can’t blame Theron for joining the project. It probably looked promising in the conceptual stages, especially with a critically praised female director attached and hopes for a franchise (and franchise-sized paychecks). Somewhere along the way to release, things went wrong. This isn’t a great cinematic folly, but rather a forgettable time-waster with enough visual candy to maintain a borderline interest, but without substance it becomes an exercise in imaginative production design.